


Moments That the Words Don’t Reach

by fireweed15



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Homeworld is Horrible, Pre-Series, do not read in public you will cry like a baby, especially for pearls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 10:00:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7930405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireweed15/pseuds/fireweed15
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You hold your child as tight as you can / And push away the unimaginable</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moments That the Words Don’t Reach

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt a challenge with a friend  
> Inspiration heavily drawn from "It's Quiet Uptown" from Hamilton

Keeping her a secret had been far easier in theory than in practice. Despite Pearl’s best efforts, her exhaustion and eventual need to rest completely, allowing her body the energy it needed to form a new gem, said everything her words didn’t—and now this. 

 

Her rooms were small, just enough for herself—and now for the small pearl in her arms, swaddled in a thin blanket. Technically, all pearls were called simply  _ Pearl _ , but privately, she called her child  _ Blue _ , for her color. In this place, the curious overlap between the courts of White and Pink Diamond, she was an oddity. None of the few who had seen her, mostly the elder pearls who aided her in delivering Blue, had seen such a color in these estates. 

 

“You’re special,” Pearl murmured, allowing the infant to grasp her fingers. “You’re unique.” 

 

Even if the little one didn’t understand the words, she understood her mother’s voice, and cooed in delight. Pearl couldn’t help but smile at the sound, at the way she kicked her feet in delight. For all the pain of carrying and delivering her, she couldn’t fathom a life without her. 

 

The door opened in the front room, the bang startling Blue, who started to fuss. Pearl hushed her, drawing a blanket over her small form. “Coming,” she called, standing and closing the door behind her. 

 

As she did, a pair of vermarine quartzes stooped to come through the doorway of her front room. “Welcome,” she murmured, bowing. “May I serve you—” 

 

“Where is it?” the taller quartz demanded, the gem on her forehead glinting coldly as it caught the light. 

 

“I beg your pardon, ser?” Pearl asked, feeling something inside her twist. 

 

“You have a new pearl,” the second quartz rumbled. Her gem was on her throat, hidden in shadow.

 

“I—I don’t understand—” She resisted the urge to back away from the pair. Both of them were twice her height, thrice her weight on their  _ own _ . 

 

“A powder blue.” 

 

Someone had seen her daughter, and the thought made Pearl vaguely ill. She nodded, licking her lips and forcing herself to speak. “My daughter.” 

 

“We’re here to collect it,” the first ordered. 

 

“What? Why?!” she gasped. For a moment, she prayed she’d  _ misheard _ them—but the scowls on their faces said that no, she had heard them  _ painfully  _ clearly. 

 

“It’s been gifted to Blue Diamond’s court—“Pearl couldn’t fathom it. A pearl as young and new as her daughter, being taken away so soon to a court so far away?—“by your master.” 

 

“I—I don’t—” The door opened, and her master stepped inside. 

 

Pearl felt a thrill of hope at the sight—her master wouldn’t have done  _ that _ to her and Blue. Surely she would be able to clear up this awful mistake. “My lady,” she gasped, all but throwing herself at her master’s feet. “My lady, please—” 

 

“It’s for the best, Pearl,” her master replied. Perhaps the tone was meant to be soothing, but the words themselves were meaningless. She pulled Pearl to her feet and patted her hand; the touch felt like Pearl’s form was being burned. “She’ll be among friends.” 

 

Pearl started to tremble, her eyes stinging with unwept tears. “Please—” 

 

The closed door muffled the sound, but the piercing cry of an infant Gem was impossible to ignore. The quartzes exchanged brief glances, then moved to the door with the intent of following through with their mission. 

 

“No!” Pearl tried to run, but her master’s grip on her wrist stopped her. “Don’t take her, please!”  

 

Blue’s cries became louder, more frightened as she was carried from the room. The sight, the sounds of her daughter’s cries—knowing there were Gems near her child—ignited a toxic mix of anxiety and rage in Pearl’s very soul, and she writhed against her master’s hold, clawing at her hands and swearing violently. After several terrifying seconds, Pearl’s master released her. She staggered for a moment, but lunged for the quartzes, swearing to shatter them both—a viable threat from a mother Gem. 

 

Despite her threats and the effort she made to make good on them, she never got the chance. The quartz who hadn’t laid hands on Blue caught her by the throat and threw her to the ground with neither warning nor mercy. The motion too fluid, too  _ fast _ to do anything else, Pearl threw her arms up to protect her gem as she hit the stone floor.

 

She lay there for a moment, stunned, before the severity of the situation broke over her like a wave. All but screaming for her child, she scrambled to her feet and rushed for the door. It slammed, mercilessly, in her face; the sound of the bolt clicking from the outside was heard even over Blue’s cries and Pearl’s pleas for  _ mercy _ . The fainter Blue’s cries became, the bigger the hole in Pearl’s heart became-- bigger and bigger until it consumed her, her fists raw and aching as she pounded on the door.

  
  
How Pearl heard Blue’s cries over her own anguished sobs, she never understood. 

**Author's Note:**

> Built on the premise that Gems can reproduce biologically. The process of having children, for Gems, is very long and drawn out (a year for humans) because the carrying parent is producing a Gem as well as the body to which it’s attached. As such, the carrying parent is fiercely protective of their child (to the degree that even the most mellow Gem will rip out your throat if someone were to come near the child, even with the most pure of intentions). As such, separating a baby from its carrying parent is one of the cruelest things imaginable.
> 
> How fitting, then, to use the most soul-crushing, gutting song from the Hamilton soundtrack?

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The dream of what we'll never have](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7963555) by [Pearlislove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pearlislove/pseuds/Pearlislove)
  * [Voices screaming in the silence](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8020189) by [Pearlislove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pearlislove/pseuds/Pearlislove)




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